RUTH Davidson has not yet joined the House of Lords as she has not agreed with the member of the royal household responsible for titles on what she will be called, The National can reveal.
The former Scottish Conservative leader was nominated for a life peerage by Boris Johnson last year.
She stood down from Holyrood ahead of the election and is to join the board of life insurance, pensions and investment mutual Royal London next week.
Under the process for taking a seat in the Lords, nominees are required to agree a title with the member of the royal household known as the Garter King of Arms, whose role dates back to the 15th century.
However, Davidson has not yet met with the Garter and no date for the meeting has yet been set.
Since 1415, the Garter has been the principal adviser to the monarch with respect to flag-flying, ceremony and heraldry – which encompasses the design and display of coats of arms, badges and mottos. His seal and signature appear on all grants and arms made by the College of Arms. It is the Garter’s duty to announce the new monarch.
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The current Garter is Thomas Woodcock, who read out all of the Duke of Edinburgh’s titles at his funeral in April.
SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said that Davidson not being able to join the House of Lords until she had an agreed title was “another reason” for the unelected chamber being scrapped.
He said: “If Baroness Davidson can’t take her seat until she agrees what fancy-Dan title she’ll have, it is yet another reason why the unelected Lords need scrapped.
“If the Lords was essential to good governance – and not just a lucrative sinecure for washed-up politicians – then there would be an urgent need for her to take her seat to help combat the health and economic crises presented by the pandemic.
“She hasn’t felt that urgency because even she knows the Lords is expendable and expensive. On the other hand, she wasted no time in agreeing to another new title – non-executive director of a firm in the city of London – on a reported £85,000 for a few days a year.”
Davidson confirmed in September she will take up the role. She said at the time: “I am honoured to follow in the footsteps of former Holyrood parliamentarians such as Jack McConnell, Jim Wallace and Annabel Goldie in being nominated for membership of the House of Lords.
“As a chamber dedicated to scrutinising and revising legislation, the upper house is stronger when it includes a range of voices with experience from different jobs, backgrounds, specialities and parliaments across the UK, and I believe I can make a contribution to its work.”
In an interview in April, Davidson said she believes in an elected second chamber.
She said she would be attending the Lords only a couple of days a week and ruled out accepting a ministerial role once she was a peer.
Speaking to the Edinburgh Evening News, she defended her decision to accept a seat in the Lords and explained how she hoped it would fit with her spending more time with her partner Jen Wilson and son Finn, now two-and-a-half.
READ MORE: Ruth Davidson mocked for claim she 'wasn't part of Scottish Tory campaign team'
She said: “What people don’t really understand about the House of Lords is, if you look at the last five years the number of sitting days only averages about 100 and backbenchers aren’t expected to go to all of them.
“It will be a different way of working for me, so I will be away a couple of days a week and when I’m away I’ll be away away – but when I’m at home I’ll actually be present in Jen and Finn’s lives and I won’t be fielding lots of phone calls and I won’t be up till 10 or 11pm doing all the admin.”
She said she thought there ought to be an elected second chamber and would vote for that. “However, the system we have at the moment exists – and I don’t think the chamber that exists should only be filled with people who live inside the M25 corridor because the legislation it’s looking at applies to the whole country,” she says.
Davidson rejected suggestions she would become a UK minister. “I’m not looking for, nor would I accept, a role that takes me away from my family when they’re just young.”
A spokesperson for Davidson said: “Ruth has already spoken to the Leader of the House following the Holyrood election about taking her seat and was in contact with Garter and the Clerk to the Parliaments Office last week to put things in train.”
A spokesman for the House of Lords confirmed Davidson was not a member.
The Ministry of Justice said no meeting had taken place between Davidson and the Garter to agree Davidson's title.
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